* After examining the briefs and the record, we have concluded that oral

argument is unnecessary. Thus, the appeal is submitted on the briefs and the

record. See

Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). 

# United States Court of Appeals

**For the Seventh Circuit**

**Chicago, Illinois 60604**

Submitted May 11, 2005 *

Decided May 16

, 2005

**Before**

Hon. FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge

Hon. DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge

Hon. DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge

No. 04-4164

KENNETH L. WRONKE,

Plaintiff-Appellant

,

v.

CHAMPAIGN COUNTY SHERIFF’S

OFFICE, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees. Appeal from the United States

District Court for the

Central District of Illinois.

No. 01-2308

David G. Bernthal

, Magistrate Judge

.

**O R D E R**

Kenneth Wronke was jailed for more than four years for civil contempt because

he refused to pay child support as ordered by an Illinois court. S ee Wronke v. Illinois,

No. 96-3716, 1997 WL 107761, at *1 (7th Cir. March 6, 1997) (unpub lished order).

During most of that time he was confined in the Champaign County Correctional

Center. In this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Illinois tort law, he claims that he was

denied adequate medical care and subjected to dangerous working conditions. The

district court granted summary judgment for the defendants, and on appeal Wronke UNPUBLISHED ORDER

Not to be cited per Circuit Rule 53No. 04-4164 Page 2

essentially argues that all of his claims should have proceeded to trial. We affirm the

judgment.

We recite the facts in the light most favorable to Wronke. S ee Gil v. Reed, 381

F.3d 649, 651 (7th Cir. 2004). Wronke volunteered to run the jail’s laundry as

“laundry trustee.” Though he complains that the job entailed working up to 20 hours

a day, he acknowledges that it also entitled him to a single cell and enabled him to

spend most of his time in the laundry instead of his cell. A few months before his

release, he fell and cut his forearm when a barrel he was filling with laundry

separated from its casters and tipped over. A deputy sheriff telephoned the nurse on

call and, following her instructions, applied gauze and tape to stop the bleeding. The

nurse telephoned Dr. Ahmad, who arrived a few hours later, anesthetized the arm, and

stitched the cut. Wronke complained of shoulder pain, and without examining the

shoulder Dr. Ahmad opined that the pain was attributable to the cut.

Wronke returned to work as soon as Dr. Ahmad finished treating him, but he

was in constant pain for the next ten days, and the range of motion and strength of his

shoulder were diminished. When the nurse who helped treat him checked on him the

next day, Wronke told her he was “f ine under the circumstances.” Later, when Dr.

Ahmad returned to remove the stitches, he expressed concern about his rotator cuff,

but the doctor did not examine his shoulder. After that Wronke never again sought

medical attention for his shoulder or asked to see Dr. Ahmad. He continued working

in the laundry until his release three months later, and though guards gave him overthe-counter analgesics every few days during that time, Wronke told them the

medication was for headac h es. On several occasions Wronke also received pain

relievers from a nurse after he complained that his shoulder hurt. After his release

Wronke continued taking over-the-counter pain medication, but only after ten months

did he finally consult a doctor . Wronke says that an MRI conducted roughly fifteen

months after the injury revealed a torn rotator cuff.

Wronke then sued Dr. Ahmad, the sheriff, and the deputy sheriff and nurse who

responded when he fell. In his fourth amended complaint, he alleged that he tore his

rotator cuff when he fell; he claimed that the long hours, dangerous working conditions

and inadequate medical care after his fall violated the Eighth Amend m ent’s ban

against cruel and unusual punishment. He also claimed that Dr. Ahmad’s treatment

of his cut and failure to diagnose the rotator cuff injury constituted medical

malpractice under Illinois law. A magistrate judge presiding by consent, s ee 28 U.S.C.

§ 636(c), granted summary judgment f or the defendants. The court reasoned that

Wronke could not establish a constitutional violation because there was no evidence

of deliberate indifference to his medical needs and no evidence that he was forced to

work in the prison laundry. Having already excluded the report of his proposed

medical expert because of a discovery violation, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(a)(2)(B), theNo. 04-4164 Page 3

court also reasoned that Wronke could not establish malpractic e by Dr. Ahmad because

a medical expert’s opinion is required in Illinois to establish the requisite standard of

care and Wronke had none. (The court rejected the argument that cross-examination

of Dr. Ahmad himself could fill the gap.)

Wronke’s disagreements with the magistrate judge’s analysis of his

constitutional claims merely highlight his failure to appreciate his evidentiary burden.

Whether we look to the Eighth Amendment as do the parties, but see I ngraham v.

Wright

, 430 U.S. 651, 667-78 (1977 ) (recognizing that Eighth Amendment has been

held inapplicable to incarceration for civil contempt); United States v. Dien

, 598 F.3d

743, 745 (2d Cir. 1979) (Eighth Amendment does not apply to a civil contempt

sentence), or instead to the Due Process Clause, see West v. Schwebke, 333 F.3d 745,

748 (7th Cir. 2003

) (Due Process Clause requires conditions of involuntary civil

confinement to bea r reasonable relation to purpose of confinement), there is no

evidence that the defendants displayed the degree of indifference to Wronke’s health

or safety necessary to implicate the Constitution. The defendants quickly stopped the

bleeding from the cut, and Wronke does not even assert he suffered any lasting harm

or unnecessary pain either from their chosen course of treatment or from t heir brief

delay in stitching it, see L angston v. Peters , 100 F.3d 1235, 1240-41 (7th Cir. 1996)

(prisoner must establish detrimental effect of delay in medical treatment); Gil v. Reed,

381 F.3d 649, 663 (7th Cir. 2004) (prisoner mus t establish more than mere

disagreement over best course of treatment). If his shoulder continued to bother him

after his arm healed, he should have asked to see the doctor again, s ee Farmer v.

Brennan, 511 U.S 825, 847 (1994) (prisoner must establish defendants were

subjectively aware of the risk of harm); Gutierrez v. Peters

, 111 F.3d 1364, 1369 (7th

Cir. 1997). As for the conditions of Wronke’s job, his assigned tasks of washing

clothes, mopping floors, and delivering meals are now here comparable to the

dangerous working conditions that courts have held subject to constitutional scrutiny.

Cf. Hall v. Bennett, 379 F.3d 462 , 464-65 (7th Cir. 2004) (risk of electrocution from

working on live 400-volt line without protective gloves); Bagola v. Kindt

, 39 F.3d 779,

780 (7th Cir. 1994) (risk of amputation from dangerous machinery); F ruit v. Norris

, 905 F.2d 1147, 1150-51 (8th Cir. 1990) (exposure without protective gea r to raw

sewage inside a well with temperatures reaching 125 degrees); Wallis v. Baldwin

, 70

F.3d 1074, 1075-77 (9th Cir. 1995) (exposure to asbestos wi th inadequate protective

gear). Moreover, there was no evidence the job required Wronke to work 20 hours a

da y. “It didn’t make any difference to me what time I started,” he acknowledged,

because “I would rather be in the laundry than be in the pod with the dregs of society.”

Wronke cannot manufacture a constitutional claim by volunteering for a job when he

could have avoided t he offending conditions by choosing to stay in his cell. S ee Christopher v. Buss , 384 F.3d 879, 882-83 (7th Cir. 2004) (prisoner’s voluntary

participation in softball game leading to injury undermined his constitutional claim).No. 04-4164 Page 4

Also without merit is Wronke’s challenge to the grant of summary judgement

on his malpractice claim. He argues that the district court should have accepted as

part of the summary judgment evidence a report from his proposed medical expert, or

else let him proceed to trial without expert testimony. Among a host of defects, the

report lacked any reasoning in support of the purported expert’s conclusions. S ee Fed.

R. Civ. P. 26(a)(2)(B). Thus, the district court acted within its discretion in striking it.

See Salgado v. Gen. Motors Corp., 150 F.3d 735, 742-43 (7th Cir. 1998). Without an

expert’s opinion, Wronke could not prove that another doctor would have given any

be t ter treatment. S ee Massey v. United States

, 312 F.3d 272, 280 (7th Cir. 2002)

(unless physician’s negligence would be appare nt to a layperson, Illinois requires

expert medical testimony to establish standard of care and deviation from that

st andard). Moreover, even had the court considered the report for purposes of the

defendants’ summary judgment motion, it would have added nothing. The purported

expert’s entire opinion is confined to two sentences, concluding that Wronke’s shoulder

injury was sustained when he fell and that “complications could have been prevented

with proper treatment at time of initial injury.” Missing is any evidence from which

a jury reasonably could conclude that Dr. Ahmad should have proceeded differently.

E.g., Seef v. Ingalls Mem’l Hosp., 724 N.E.2d 115, 123 (Ill. App. Ct. 1999).

A FFIRMED

.